Washington Panics: Is Iran/Syria Regime Winning?
(Updated: A case can be made that the Syrian rebels must not be defeated, because this would represent an Iranian victory. But, and disturbingly, even if one could argue that the rebels must be helped, this would be a policy conducted dishonestly.
Most are not aware that almost all the weapons provided by the United States will end up in the hands of pro-Muslim Brotherhood units. How would the American people feel if they knew that truth? At this point, almost 100 percent of the fighters on the front lines are radical Islamists. The exiled political leadership is overwhelmingly Muslim Brotherhood.
This is a choice of Sunni anti-Christians, anti-Americans, and anti-Semites vs. Shia anti-Christians, anti-Americans, and anti-Semites. The United States — after Egypt and Tunisia — is now promoting the Muslim Brotherhood as regional hegemon. This is not a good idea.)
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A new, important development has taken place in the Syrian civil war: Western panic that the rebels are losing has replaced optimism, and this has spurred a desire to do something about the war. But how can the West do enough to prevent the feared rebel defeat? It isn’t going to intervene directly, nor with a large enough effort to stave off a loss. Anyway, is a defeat imminent?
This has been a war during which each week brings a proclamation of a different victor. I don’t believe that the Syrian regime is poised for a victory; a lot of people in Washington and other world capitals do. This round has, however, been different in that significant alarms have been raised in both the West and the Sunni Muslim world that the Shia Muslim side is in fact winning — meaning that Iran is emerging triumphant over the United States.
What are the implications?
Iran is not going to take over the Middle East, nor is it about to win a lot of Sunni followers. Iran’s limit of influence is mainly in Lebanon and Syria (where its ally only controls half the country) and to a lesser extent Iraq. Tehran can fool around in Yemen, Bahrain, and southwest Afghanistan a bit too, but that’s about it. There are real limits.
Why, though, does the Iran bloc seem to be winning? The reasons:
– Iran’s proxies are better organized than the Syrian rebels.
They are unified, with Hizballah and the Syrian government being coherent forces, and a new people’s army being a single militia. In contrast, the rebels are divided into a dozen groups which may cooperate, but which also battle among themselves and don’t coordinate very well.
– The Iran bloc gives more support to its proxies than do the Sunni bloc or the West.
Among the Sunnis, they are also divided into Islamists (Muslim Brotherhood, Salafists, and al-Qaeda) and what might be called non- or anti-Islamists. The United States will not intervene in a big way. Remember that in Libya, NATO had to hand the rebels victory by destroying their regime enemies. Nothing like this will happen in Syria. The Obama administration will face a defeat rather than do so.
– This means that the United States has worse and weaker proxies than does the other side.
In part, this is because the Obama administration accepted their destruction, as in the dismantlement of the Turkish army’s power, the overthrow of the Egyptian regime, the subverting of Israel’s leverage, and the failure to support moderates or non-Islamist conservatives all over the region. Iraq has also been turned into a Shia power.
In short, Obama helped dismantle the old strategic order and replaced it with one where enemies of America rejoiced.
So what happens if U.S. policy exaggerates a Sunni defeat, intensified by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan — those who backed the Syrian rebels — begging it to do more?
Let me point out that once again this shows that the Arab-Israeli conflict is unimportant in the contemporary Middle East. This idea simply doesn’t seem to penetrate the brains of Western leaders. Perhaps Secretary of State John Kerry has turned into a full-time “peacemaker” because he thinks that defusing the conflict will shore up the Sunni Muslim side, which is ridiculous. There’s not going to be any progress on peace, if for no other reason than the Palestinian Authority is terrified of either Islamist or Shia Islamist conquest of the region. Even if they wanted to make a deal — and they don’t — they’d be scared off by thinking peacemaking is suicidal.
But the wider issue could convince policymakers to enter an open alliance with Sunnis, including the Muslim Brotherhood, to counter the Shias. The Saudis and others would be pressured to get along with the Muslim Brotherhood; Israel would be pushed not to do anything to disrupt the grand alliance. Again, this could happen, but it won’t work if it does.
There is an alternative: the United States will understand that Israel is just about the only reliable ally in the Middle East. It might take another president to do that.









I wonder what the M.E. will look like in 25 years when this jug-eared miscreant is sitting back polishing his Nobel Peace Prize and giving thought to penning his memoirs. We've seen what has happened to this region by Carter's meddlings - and presidents since him have done little better.
Will there be anything left of Syria? Egypt? How about Israel? If there is no Israel in 25 years I doubt the historians will have much choice in how to play up/down Obama's hand in it's demise. His hand is all over the turmoil yet he seems to be surprised by each turn of events in response to his actions/inactions. I really doubt he'll be drawing a line in any sands in the near future. He's learned that much.
Are progressives really this stupid?
"There are no "good guys" in Syria." Not true, there are good guys in Syria and they are the Kurds. It is they who will carve out the northern safe zone (in fact, they already have carved it out, for all intents and purposes) which will eventually be incorporated into the future Kurdistan. Located in the northwest corner of Syria this will be one base of operations and refugee center supported by the Kurds and the Turks just across the two adjacent borders. Notice that Erdoğan and the Kruds just arranged a detante last week. The peshmerga, long our allies with decades of relationships with American special forces and the CIA, will take care of this safe zone.
The southern Syrian safe zone will located adjacent from Jordan not far from Israel will probably a project of the Jordanian military and special forces with US and others joining in as needed. These two safe zones will hold the refugees and be humanitarian and military staging areas.
The next element is the no fly zone. I expect that will be Syria proper which will require the same resources as the no fly zones in Iraq and Libya.
Soon there will be an attack on all the air assets of Syria by cruse missiles and stealth bombers. Then the no fly zone can be enforced from bases in Jordan, Turkey and at sea. Downed aviators can be rescued from the safe zones.
With so many powers operating through proxies in Syria it will be telling how the various powers respond the the escalation. Bets will be raised and bluffs will be called.
People at PJ Media are connected I wonder what the Israeli defense establish thinks of all this. I expect they support it. Not the least since Syrian air space then becomes a possible route to bomb Iran. But that high card will now be partly in Obama's pocket.
The Kurds, who are doing a pretty good job in their new homeland of Iraqi Kurdistan, will be good stewards of their Syrian territory. They could eventually control northern Syria from east to west.
Will Jordan occupy a chunk of southern Syria in the future?
All this puts Hezbollah in a fatal bind. They could be cut off from their masters in Iran.
The government is a fascist dictatorship.
The rebels are Al Qaeda and Moslem Botherhood.
If the rebels win they will exterminate the marginal religious minorities, Alawites, Christians, Druze.
If the Syrian Government wins, this won't happen.
If we aid anybody at all, it should be Assad; a fascist dictator is a step up from an Islamic "Republic."
What are they fighting for anyway? For the freedom to be executed by one group of thugs instead of the other?
Btw, their freedom is doing really well in Egypt, in Libya and in Turkey.
Just like us, if you have done nothing wrong, what is to fear? Do whatever Big Govt. wants you to do, there is nothing to fear, really.
>> Iran is not going to take over the Middle East, nor is it about to win a lot of Sunni followers.
So Iran's many enemies are irrational? And how many Sunni followers did Assad need to rule Sunni majority Syria? And Iran doesn't care how many Sunni followers convert, and knows they won't. See if you maintain control by force you don't need ideological or religious converts. That's the whole point. This is news?
Well, it would be the whole point if the Mullahs were rational actors, but they probably aren't. So even if Iran gets nukes, and in the unlikely event that they still aren't able to dominate the region afterwards, what if they're run by an apocalyptic cult that then opts to destroy the region, or what if they want to anyway? Bob, would that change your method of calculation?
And now Obama will continue apace by assisting, siding with the enemies of America in order to topple Assad. (Who's next on Obama's list? Jordan, S. Arabia?) Obama is such an incompetent, bungling disaster -- this can only be catastrophic for the United States.
Add to the mix his intential snubbing, insulting, betraying and down right stabbing in the back ever ally we have and you have a guy that is intent on turning the entire planet against us. He's even screwing Canada with the pipeline. Oh and he's flooding our country with third world illiterates that also hate us. Oh and he's financially destroying us with debt. Crippling our industry and dumbing down our future (our youth) to a level that makes the illiterates look competant. They, at least can use a hammer or a leaf blower.
Have I left anything out? Seems to me he's got the destruction of our country down to a science and has accomplished in a few short years what took centuries to destroy Rome.
Do you think Iran has a Plan B if the rebel(s) win? My guess would be they’ll try to win the new regime over with the same support they’ve provided Assad over the years. If that can’t be done, would that not be a huge defeat for Iran?
Then the question would be should you support one enemy (Muslim Brotherhood) in order to weaken another?